


A World In Us

by purplelaterade



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-13 21:56:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/829316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplelaterade/pseuds/purplelaterade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was still the Doctor, of course; she knew that better than anyone. Sometimes, though, she still finds herself reaching for a bowtie that’s no longer there, and she wonders if she’ll ever stop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A World In Us

**Author's Note:**

> So a couple of us over on Tumblr - docoswald, geekalogian, and I - I have latched onto the idea of Andrew-Lee Potts for Twelve, so I... wrote Twelve/Clara fic specifically imagining ALP as Twelve. If you do not know who he is, go look up SyFy's Alice miniseries because it's wonderful and he's wonderful. It's available for streaming on Netflix, if you've got it. He's also in a show called Primeval, which I have not seen yet but hear is also very good. It's on Netflix as well. Anyway, I realize he's a longshot and they've probably either cast Twelve already or are pretty close, but right now I don't even care because I really love this fancast and I'm just gonna run with it for now.

“Why Yorkshire?”

The Doctor looks up for a moment, and Clara’s caught off-guard again for a moment when his eyes meet hers – darker now, no longer the sparkling green she’d grown so accustomed to, but the liveliness is still there. He finishes chewing, grimacing as he swallows and pushes the dish away, for what is probably the hundredth time in the past couple of days. “I don’t think these tastebuds like celery much.”

Clara raises an eyebrow. “That’s a surprise, considering you spent an entire incarnation _wearing_ it.”

“Yes, well.” He sniffs, a bit haughtily. “That was a safety precaution.”

She laughs and leans forward, elbows on the table and fingers knit together in order to rest her chin atop them. It’s strange, still, this new face of his. She’s adjusting both better and worse than she’d thought: understanding the regeneration process and having seen all his faces has helped, but there’s still an aching sense of loss deep in her chest that hasn’t gone away yet. The night it had happened she’d half-carried, half-dragged him into his room to rest (a feat made easier by the fact that he’d lost a couple inches of height, and by the TARDIS moving the room to the beginning of the first corridor she’d pulled him into); as soon as he was situated, and she was sure he was asleep, she’d fled to her own room and cried so hard she was almost sick. He’s still the Doctor, of course; she knows that better than anyone. Sometimes, though, she still finds herself reaching for a bowtie that’s no longer there, and she wonders if she’ll ever stop.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she reminds him. “Why Yorkshire? The accent, I mean.”

The Doctor shrugs, settling back in his seat and sipping at a cup of tea, presumably to get the taste of the celery out of his mouth. “Luck of the draw, I suppose. Can’t control it, really, any more than I can control my height or my hair color; and let me tell you, if I could I would’ve-”

“-been ginger ages ago, I know, I know,” she finishes for him, rolling her eyes. “I’m this close to just buying you a box of red hair dye and telling you to go nuts.”

His eyes go huge, as if the idea had never occurred to him. “Could we do that?”

“Dunno. What if it reacts funny, turns your alien hair green?”

There’s a definite slump to his shoulders as he considers this. “Not sure how I’d feel about green hair. I think I’m a bit too vain for that this time around.”

Clara wants to throw out _and I think there have been enough changes for the moment_ but she bites it back just in time. She’s tried, mostly successfully, to keep her feelings about his regeneration to herself. He’d been so worried, both right before it had happened and after he’d woken up – that she wouldn’t like his new face, that she wouldn’t want to stay with him anymore. Ridiculous, of course. She hadn’t splintered herself, hadn’t lived and died over a thousand years protecting almost a dozen faces, just to take off because his chin wasn’t the same now. She’d keep protecting him, like she’d always done.

Even if part of that protection was, for a time, protecting him from her own emotions until she got them sorted.

“It might’ve been you, though,” he says suddenly, and she looks at him, puzzled.

“What might’ve?”

“Sometimes I… pick up on things, while I’m regenerating. Little things that carry over. It’s possible I picked up on your accent a bit. Not enough to duplicate it, clearly, but the northern influence stuck.”

The ache in her chest subsides a bit as she feels a warmth overtake it, like a balm. “Well,” she begins, trying and failing to fight the grin that’s tugging at the corners of her mouth, “at least it’s a proper Yorkshire accent. Not that rubbish one you pulled in Sweetsville.”

“Oi!” he protests, offended. “Mrs. Gillyflower bought it!”

“Nah, Mrs. Gillyflower bought our crazy-in-love newlyweds act,” she says without thinking, and his eyebrows (still weird, to see him with proper eyebrows) rise so high they almost disappear into his hair and under the brim of his hat. “Which is because I am a fantastic actor,” she adds quickly, feeling almost flustered; not something she’s used to. “I’ll have you know I got the lead role in the school play when I was nine. I was Queen Victoria.”

“Ah, good old Queen Vicky,” the Doctor sighs. “She knighted me, did y’know? Banished me too, but I prefer to remember the good times.” He frowns. “Of course, those happened at the _same_ time… but what were we talking about? Accents! Right. I seem to remember you affecting a bit of an accent too, Mrs. Smith.”

“Yes, well, I already have a northern accent, wasn’t much of a stretch, was it?” She reaches across the table for the abandoned plate of celery, more to give herself something to do than any sudden craving for celery.

“Don’t eat that,” he says, as she lifts a piece to her mouth.

“Why not?” she asks with a smirk. “Afraid I’ll taste like celery when you try and kiss me later?”

“Yep.”

The way he pops the ‘p’ causes it to almost echo in the moment of stunned silence that follows. Then he laughs, so loudly Clara jumps. “Oh, I’d forgotten how much fun that was! I used to do that all the time, that little pop on the ‘p’ there. Haven’t done it in ages. That was a bit loud though, probably, wasn’t it? Maybe I’ll tone it down next time.” Clara stares at him in disbelief as he continues to ramble on. “Anyway, speaking of Victorian England, d’ya think we should pay Vastra, Jenny, and Strax a visit? They might want to see this rather dashing new face of mine. And maybe they’ll have some idea what to feed me. Could use a good meal.” He’s out of his seat before she can even get a word in, making his way out of the kitchen and toward the console room with long strides that seem to be trying to compensate for the loss of height.

It’s not until he reaches the doorway that he freezes, standing motionless for a good ten seconds. Clara waits. Eventually he spins on his heel, looking straight at her.

“Did I just say I was going to try and kiss you later?”

“I believe you may have.”

There’s another stretch of silence, during which he seems to seriously regard this bit of information. “Hmm.” He shrugs, a grin splitting his face. “Learn something new every day!” Then he’s disappearing through the door and out into the corridor, leaving Clara scrambling after him.

“Doctor? What does that even mean? Oi, wait up!”

_Oh, this is going to take some getting used to._


End file.
